RE: Formal request to donate and publish the Accessibility Tree Training Guide as a Note

Thanks, I understand your points, but still think this is worth doing. I'll outline the primary reasons for this below.

1 Discoverability

If instructional training materials regarding the use of ARIA are only hosted and accessed through a wide range of private sites, there is no way for standard developers to differentiate between good and bad training materials.

However, a W3C training resource specifically dedicated for this purpose is absolute and can always be referenced for this purpose.

2 Impartiality

A W3C training resource is wholly educational, and is not trying to sell any particular product or service by withholding information.

3 Accuracy

Since the content of such a training resource involves the participation of the group, we can ensure that we are all on the same page regarding functionality and implementation, and ensure the highest level of quality possible for standard developers to learn from.

4 Comprehensibility

Most developers don't understand how ARIA works at the platform level, and don't understand how the information in the spec translates to practical usage. Often this means that such developers see ARIA as a bunch of attributes that can be put on things.

As a result, many developers use ARIA all the time, but only a tiny fraction of these understand why and how to do so effectively using specific scripting requirements.

The only way to reverse this situation, where it is possible for most developers to learn how ARIA works and how to properly implement it, is to provide a W3C WG approved central training resource that is dedicated for this purpose.

I think this is possible using a Note, as described at
http://www.w3.org/2014/Process-20140801/#Note


Since I've done most of the work for this already, including direct input from various PFWG members during the process to make sure that the information is accurate and comprehensible, I believe it would be a good time to consider the value of providing this information to all developers for the reasons described above.

I understand that this is work for all of us in the WG, but I think it would be beneficial for everybody in the long run.

All the best,
Bryan

From: lisa.seeman [mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2014 11:08 PM
To: Bryan Garaventa
Cc: W3C WAI Protocols & Formats
Subject: Re: Formal request to donate and publish the Accessibility Tree Training Guide as a Note

Hi Bryan

I think it can achieve a lot of this without being a W3C note. I may be wrong but I think if we make it a note then the WG has to review it critically, reach consensuses on changes  and a lot of work is involved. I am not sure there is enough benefit.

All the best

Lisa Seeman

Athena ICT Accessibility Projects <http://accessibility.athena-ict.com/default.shtml>
LinkedIn<http://il.linkedin.com/in/lisaseeman/>, Twitter<https://twitter.com/SeemanLisa>



---- On Fri, 05 Sep 2014 02:53:53 +0300 Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com<mailto:bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com>> wrote ----

Hello,
If I may, I would like to make a formal request to donate the content of the Accessibility Tree Training Guide to the W3C, and request that this content be published as a Note, in order to increase practical knowledge of ARIA for engineers and educators who are currently struggling to do so using outdated, widely dispersed, and sometimes incorrect training materials worldwide.

For review, the current text is available at
http://whatsock.com/training/

The personal references at the beginning and end can of course be removed, and the content modified to fit the documentation standards of the W3C as desired.

The goal of this guide is to address a critical issue worldwide, which is the lack of practical knowledge by the majority of common web developers who are unfamiliar with the platform level aspects of ARIA, explaining how to recognize these connections, how to test for these connections during development, how to locate relevant spec documentation and samples for each within context, how to recognize the differences between browser and Assistive Technology bugs regarding ARIA support, how to recognize key differences between differing Assistive Technology types as they relate to ARIA support, and to provide a single location where all of this information can be obtained and referenced with the greatest level of accuracy possible.

Since screen reader and browser support will evolve as ARIA does also, I expect that this would be a living document, which I would be happy to continue maintaining and editing if this is agreeable.

My hope is that, if published as a Note, we can ensure that developers who have a basic background in HTML and JavaScript with little to no knowledge of ARIA, can read through this guide from beginning to end, follow the W3C references as guide posts as instructed, learn how to be familiar with and test using the most common Assistive Technologies, and thereby result in a good understanding of how ARIA works and should be implemented to ensure the greatest level of accessibility possible.

Sincerely,
Bryan Garaventa